In December 1988 the Human Rights Commission reported that between July and September they had recorded 58 political trials involving 190 people. However, details of these trials were not fully reported in the press.
The monitoring of trials has been disrupted by the restriction of groups like the Detainees Parents' Support Committee. Moreover, the legal process can be lengthy - at the end of 1988 there were trials still in progress arising out of resistance in 1985. It is not unusual for defendants to wait months, sometimes years, for their trials to end. As a result, press reports often do not cover an entire trial.
The regions for which most material on proceeding trials is available are the Eastern Cape, the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV) area and the Western Cape. Both the Eastern Cape and the PWV area have seen severe repression of mass resistance and a large number of trials involving charges of, for example, murder, public violence and arson. There are also at least four 'terrorism' trials pending. In the Western Cape a high level of political mobilisation and organisation has led to a higher proportion of trials featuring charges of involvement in the activities of banned organisations and evidence of support for armed struggle from a wide section of society.
Most of these trials have been brought under the common law, with charges ranging from public violence to murder. In others, charges are brought under sections of the Internal Security Act, for example to cover people accused of attending an illegal gathering or of furthering the aims of an illegal organisation.
In a large number of trials the targets of the alleged offences were the police. In September the Minister of Law and Order told Parliament that 134 policemen had been killed in the previous four years. Although not all were killed in political circumstances, a significant number were killed during periods of intense police repression of unrest in specific areas.
At least two trials proceeding towards the end of 1988 and involving alleged attacks on police, were set against the background of the consumer and schools boycott that began in the Eastern Cape in mid-1985 and the occupation of the townships by the police and army. Four men appeared in the Grahamstown Supreme Court in June 1988 charged with the murder of a policeman in September 1985, whilst six New Brighton people, including one woman and three youths, appeared in the Port Elizabeth Supreme Court in May 1988, charged with the murder and attempted murder of policemen in July 1985.
Other trials include that of a Bonteheuwel man accused of setting fire to a policeman's house and a truck in August 1987. A witness who described himself as a member of the 'Bonteheuwel Military Wing', also known as the 'Bonteheuwel Comrades', explained the actions, saying, 'Coloured people are oppressed and we burn the lorries of the white people so they can suffer.'
Other frequent targets of community resistance are councillors. Sixteen Middelburg residents appeared in the East London Supreme Court in November charged with two counts of murder and one of attempted murder following the killing of a local councillor and a child and an attempt on the life of another in April 1986. Evidence showed that one of the councillors had fired into the crowd surrounding his home, causing injuries. Much of the defence has rested on conditions in both Old and New Locations, Middelburg, where there had been wide community dissatisfaction about educational facilities, rents, sewerage and corrupt councillors. As a result community leaders had written to councillors calling for their resignation. The trial highlighted the use made of Section 31 of the Internal Security Act to detain state witnesses until they have given the required evidence. Several prosecution witnesses were detained soon after the incident at which some had themselves been present. One 67-year-old witness told the court that 'he had been in . . . custody a long time and asked the court to please finish the trial quickly so he could leave prison'.
In the Western Cape the activities of banned organisations featured in a number of trials at the end of last year. For example, a church worker appeared in the Worcester Magistrates' Court in September charged with furthering the aims of the ANC. In November, a student who allegedly published a pamphlet calling for a stayaway in June 1988, appeared in the Cape Town Magistrates' Court charged under the emergency regulations.
